


Dead Skin

by Lafayette1777



Category: Arctic Monkeys, British Singers RPF, Indie Music RPF, Last Shadow Puppets
Genre: Alex and his sensitive skin, Alternate Universe, Banter, Boys Kissing, Facials, Happy Ending, M/M, Massages, Mentions the South American tour, Miles as an esthetican, Sexual Tension, fluffy as fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4643112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafayette1777/pseuds/Lafayette1777
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Alex has an image to maintain, physically and abstractly; as it happens, Miles is the man that helps him with both.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Skin

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not the only one who thinks about Alex's supposedly sensitive skin a lot, right?  
> Anyways, I dunno what this is. I wrote a happy ending, for once. I feel cheap. School starts tomorrow so fuck it.   
> Enjoy!

Is there something reverent in these hands?

Long fingers push and pull, following the incline of his cheekbones before swirling up to his forehead, then down the steadfastly straight path of his nose. And the cycle repeats, occasionally venturing down to massage the sharp point of his chin, the hinge of his jaw. Alex, beholden only to the inside of his eyelids, lets out a rumbling sigh. 

Miles’s hands retract; Alex hears the click of the towel warmer opening, and then the heat and friction of terry cloth envelope his face, enclose him in warmth. He feels swaddled and safe and so relaxed he could nearly be asleep, if it weren’t for the hint of the presence of a man above him. 

Later, once his skin has been wiped clean and the faint smell of salicylic acid no longer permeates the room, Alex sits up on the edge of the massage table and asks, “Miles, do you do waxings?”

“Yeah, every now again.” He’s still seated on his rolling stool, placing the oils and creams back in their correct places, hair falling into his eyes. He smiles roguishly and adds, “Won’t do your balls, though. Delicate work, that.”

Alex laughs, and is almost satisfied that his blush is hidden by the calming twilight of the room. He perches a moment longer, waits for the bare skin of his chest to begin to protest the cold, and finally slips back into his t-shirt. 

“Alright, was it?” Miles asks, getting to his feet and motioning toward the door. 

“Yeah, good as ever.”

Back in the contrasting brightness of the salon’s reception area, Alex blinks away the serenity of the last hour and directs his attention to Miles, handing him a receipt to sign. “That spot’s flared up on your chin again. Go easy on it with any products this week. Drink plenty of water, also.”

Alex rubs at the spot in question with a frown. “Must be the stress.”

“Heading out soon?”

“South America.”

“Eh, I’m sure you’ll do fine. Prolly know the drill by now, I reckon.” Miles smiles crookedly at him. “Interested in waxing before you leave?”

Alex doesn’t say what he’s thinking, of course - _if it means more time with you._ Instead, he goes for an ambivalent shrug. “Maybe when I get back. Don’t want to mess with it before I leave the country, you know? In case it don’t work, or whatever.”

“You’ve no faith in me, Alex.” Miles laughs, as he has a tendency to do, with his whole body - shoulders back, neck exposed, cluttered teeth bared. The word _angelic_ springs to mind before Alex can stop himself. 

“Hardly.” 

m m m

There’s a beat he recognizes coming from the other side of the heavy mahogany door, so when he knocks he inadvertently ends up tapping out the rhythm of the song instead of his usual meek little rap. 

Miles answers the door with something like a knowing smirk gracing his lips. He invites Alex inside with one hand and with the other he uses the stereo remote to quickly switch back to whatever unremarkable, ambient tune he intends to be soothing today. 

Alex thinks about commenting on the song after the initial small talk, but Miles is already getting ready: washing his hands in the sink the in the corner, dimming the lights, pulling the back the covers for Alex to climb underneath. Alex pulls off his shirt without a second thought and settles onto his back, eyes closing out of habit as he lets Miles tuck him in. 

“Sitting outside in the sun, were ya?” Miles snorts. “Look a little pink around the edges, la.”

It’s not true, but Alex makes an affirming noise anyway. 

Miles gets to work, wrapping a towel over Alex’s hair, laying out the first layer of cleanser over the delicate skin of Alex’s face with gentle hands. Alex, with his eyes shut, focuses in on the sound of every shift of fabric, every light breath Miles takes. It’s almost a meditation, unintentional though it may be. Once, after a particularly tiring day in the studio, he’d come in for a facial and had fallen asleep beneath Miles’s fingers; when he’d woken, there had been something new and tender in Miles’s expression, something lovely and hard to pin down.

Today, though, he’s fully awake. He catches a hint of Miles’s scent as a cufflink passes by his nose and tries not to noticeably inhale. He hears Miles let out a quick breath a moment later, like he’s trying not to laugh. 

Eventually, Miles sits back while a layer of coconut-smelling gel sinks into Alex’s pores. Alex, feeling brazen, moves his lips. 

“What were you listening to?” he murmurs, keeping his lids shut. “You know, when I came in?”

He pictures Miles licking his lips before he answers. Hesitant to break the stillness of the room, he replies quietly, “Oasis. You may’ve heard of ‘em.”

Alex snorts, and he hears Miles chuckle somewhere up and to his right. “You and your questions,” the Scouser murmurs, as he reaches for a warm towel to clear Alex’s skin. 

m m m

It had been an old girlfriend who’d first recommended it - someone who’d known his skin was sensitive and known he was self conscious about it. It couldn’t hurt, she’d postulated, to get it seen to by a professional when he was at home, at least. On tour it’s too difficult to schedule, and maybe he likes the thought of having Miles waiting for him when he returns, ready to scold him for how he’s mistreated himself while away. 

How he ended up with Miles in a salon full of women - well, Alex can only assume that that’s a question of fate. Maybe he’s biased, but there’s no doubt in his mind that Miles’s hands are the safest and the kindest and the only ones he wants near that persistent spot on his chin. 

He allows Miles to convince him of a proper massage the day before he sets off for Bogotá, to get out some of the tension that’s been building in his shoulders. And so he ends up face down on that familiar table, bare back exposed to oil and warm hands and all of it just a little shy of overwhelming - Miles’s fingers fluttering at the nape of his neck, the dip of his spine, applying pressure at all those places that’d be making him moan, if the situation was only slightly altered. 

Miles is using both hands to press his knuckles to each side of his client’s lower lumbar when Alex turns his head to look at him. 

“Don’t strain your neck,” Miles warns, voice low. His eyes dart to Alex’s, but then flicker away - expertly evading the inevitable tension such an action would create. 

“Do you like your job, Miles?” Alex asks, undeterred. 

Miles gives him a curious look, then gives an indeterminate bob of his head, hands still working over a knot in Alex’s back. “Yeah, I suppose. Not where I expected to end up, but it suits me alright.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, it can be strange too, you know?” Miles’s eyes are on the task beneath his fingers, his mouth moving, it seems, of its own accord. “Like, seeing people so relaxed. It’s sort of...um, never mind.” A light pink crawls its way up his neck and he smiles self-consciously, quenching the words in his throat. 

“What?” Alex prods. 

“Nothing.” Miles is still smiling a little, but he won’t make eye contact. “Just relax.”

Afterwards, as he pays the bill and Miles tries not to let their hands touch when he takes the credit card, it comes to Alex. The words that surely must have been on the tip of Miles’s tongue. He has a hard time believing there isn’t something uniquely sublime about a body completely relaxed, a face devoid of distress or facade. A few moments where the connection must feel very familiar, distinctly intimate - even if it’s an illusion. 

_Romantic._ That’s the word he’s looking for. 

“Have fun in South America, yeah?” Miles says, handing back a receipt. 

“Ta, mate.” Alex turns to leave, and just before the door swings shut behind him he catches Miles watching him depart, eyes unreadable. 

m m m

“Your skin really looks like shit,” Miles murmurs, barely audible through the towel separating Alex from the rest of the world. 

Alex chuckles blindly and retorts, “Piss off.”

The towel is removed and Miles’s fingers are once again pressing smoothly across Alex’s cheekbones a moment later, lathering something that smells strongly of coconut oil. “Seems you had a good time, though.”

“Did you miss me?”

“Shut up and meditate,” Miles snaps, but Alex has gotten good enough at hearing every subtle inflection in the other man’s voice that he has no trouble identifying the smile there, even with his eyes placidly shut. 

A few minutes pass in silence, with Alex quietly melting into every touch, every fluid movement of slender fingers that circle his orbitals and trace along his widow’s peak. “I thought about what you said last time we saw each other,” Alex says finally, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. “About people when they’re completely, like, relaxed.”

The sound of Miles’s even breaths halts, briefly, before he asks, “And what conclusion did you come to?”

Alex smiles, even though it disrupts the pattern Miles continues to massage over his chin. “It’s just nice, is all. I thought.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s not all in your head, though, you know.”

Miles’s hands have stopped their movement; one of them lies limp against Alex’s neck, and now he feels a thumb stroke the line between his jaw and his earlobe. Alex finds himself venerating the touch, and before he’s even aware of what he’s doing he’s reached up to clasp his fingers around Miles’s wrist to hold it where it is. 

Miles’s pulse quickens beneath his fingertips. Behind Alex’s eyelids, he perceives a change in light; the overhead is blocked by shadow, and he senses Miles’s presence closing in. He keeps his eyes shut and scarcely breathes, afraid that the slightest shift will send one of them spineless. 

Today, though, neither of them loses their nerve. 

It starts slow and chaste, Miles’s body bent carefully over his, lips light and soft and tasting, mildly, of tomato soup. He smells like new denim and massage oil and antibacterial soap, and quickly Alex finds his hands coming up to cup Miles’s face and pull him closer. He tangles himself in Miles’s hair, until the need for air becomes too powerful and the Scouser pulls away.

He seems to assess the situation - the way he’s halfway sprawled over Alex on top of the massage table, his hair mussed and cheeks flushed - and begins to laugh breathlessly. Within seconds Alex joins him. Giggling self-consciously, he begins to sit up, suddenly painfully aware of his bare chest and the sheen of coconut oil still on his cheekbones. He shifts until his feet hang over the side of the table just as Miles reaches for a towel. 

“Here you go, la.”

Alex cleans his face, and in his peripheral vision he sees Miles stand up from his stool and pause, momentarily, in indecision. Alex lets the towel drop just as Miles seems to make up his mind, closing the distance between them. He stands between Alex’s thighs and kisses him fiercely, hands roaming over bare skin, tongues just beginning to collide. Alex snags the back of Miles’s shirt and holds on for dear life; his own attempt at letting it last forever. 

When they do break away, though, they don’t go far. Miles presses his forehead against Alex’s, and is met by an expression as equally awe-filled as his own. 

“So I’ll take that as a yes, then,” Alex sighs out elatedly. 

“Yes to what?”

“You missed me.”

“Fuck off,” Miles retorts, and is almost grinning too wide to kiss him again.


End file.
